Karping on...

As you may have gathered, I have become a big fan of the American novelist David Karp. His novels One and Leave Me Alone were a revelation, and I find it inexplicable that his books are out of print.

I used to think that you could find anything on Google, but apart from a short Wikipedia article and a couple of obituaries from nine years ago, it is as if Karp has been wiped off the face of history. To achieve that level of obscurity as a writer you normally have to be pretty crap, or piss off your publisher so much that they effectively kill off your career. One publisher allegedly did it to one of their authors - a moderately successful female crime writer - and I haven't seen a book by her in 15 years.

We know (or at least, I think) that there's no questioning Karp's ability as a writer, so was he a bit of a tosser? Not if the following extract is anything to go by. It took me a long time to find this article and I apologise for the lengthy quote, but it's a nice story:

Do you recall David Karp? Fine writer. Won a Guggenheim back in '56. Nobody remembers that. Well, Karp got into TV writing and production when the paperback market went soft. He did some stuff for Playhouse 90 and The Untouchables. Won an Emmy, I'm pretty sure, for an episode of The Defenders.

Anyway, back in 1970 he adapted his own novel, Brotherhood of the Velvet, into a TV movie for Glen Ford. It was a conspiracy flick. A little cheesy but still ahead of its time. I was 10 years old when it broadcast and, for whatever reason, it made a big impression. So I wrote Karp a fan letter and, shockingly, he wrote back. Can you imagine that? He's a big TV writer at this point and he takes the time to write to this pre-teen punk in a factory town back east. So we had a little correspondence going for a few months--I told him, I confessed, that I wanted to be a novelist. He sent me a mint copy of The Last Believers that I still have.

Well at some point I started writing him a letter and I got a little sidetracked and began rambling about an idea I had for a dramatic television series. I had gotten hold of a little pamphlet written by D.C. Fontana, I believe, that detailed, essentially, how to write a pitch. Useful little document. So in this letter to Karp, I started pitching this notion I'd been cradling for a year or so. This idea I'd been hatching on long winter walks home from school. It was just nuts, really an off-the-wall thing. But what happened was the letter ballooned into this 60-page monster. I had to mail it in a manuscript envelope, right? About two weeks go by and suddenly I'm mortified that I wrote this thing to Mr. Karp, that I embarrassed myself so profoundly to a flesh-and-blood writer. And I'm brooding over this shame one afternoon in the rocking chair of my yellow kitchen, pretending to read a Treasure Chest comic book. And my mother is at the stove, you know, making a meatloaf. And the phone rings. So Ma wipes off her hands on the dish towel and grabs the phone and talks for a second. Then she covers the receiver with her hand and looks at me suspiciously and says, "It's a Mr. Karp for you."

Can you imagine this?

I'm ten, eleven goddamn years old. I almost dropped to the floor. I started shaking my head to refuse the call. But my mother, a stickler for doing the right thing and being polite, insisted I talk to this man. I think she thought it was someone's father or something. I remember this so clearly. So I take the phone and I sit down on the floor in the hallway and, terrified, I say hello. And Karp was just wonderful. Such a gentleman and quite funny. He said he'd read my series pitch and that he loved it and that he wanted to show it to some people. I swear to you, he even asked if I had representation. I didn't even know what that meant.

So David Karp was not only a good writer, but a decent bloke too. If chaos theory is correct, then I hope that the tiny ripples of this blog will eventually grow into a proper Karp revival. In the meantime, I promise (well, almost) that I this will be the last time I rant on about David Karp.

Uranus

'Dad, can you help me with my homework? We've got to pick a planet, learn something about it and then do a talk to the whole class.'

'Okay. What planet do you think you'd like to do?'

'Uranus.'

'Um...how about Saturn or Jupiter?'

'No, I definitely want to do Uranus.'

'Why?'

'I just want to.'

'But it's a very boring planet. Not as boring as Mercury, but there are more exciting ones you could choose.'

'No! I want to do Uranus!'

Sigh. 'Okay, we'll do it. But there's just one thing. It's pronounced Uranus.'

'No it isn't. It's Uranus and that's how I'm going to say it.'

At this point I patiently explained that since Voyager 2 visited Uranus in 1986, the pronunciation of the name has been a matter of contention because...well...

I was tempted to stop there, but the image of my son being laughed at for his unwitting double entendre was too awful.

'Anus is another word for bottom hole, so you see, if you said Uranus, it would sound like...'

'Hey! I'm going to tell everyone in the class that my dad says Uranus is Planet Butthole! Ha ha! Brilliant!'

The talk is on Friday. I'm not looking forward to the next parents' evening.

Dial 999

'Hello, Sussex Police? There's an assassin from the future walking the streets of Eastbourne...'

My son is disgusted

My son and I went to WH Smith yesterday and saw this:


They are now called Max, Dylan, Jo and Allie. The dog is still called Timmy.

Worst of all, they are a Disney franchise.

At first I thought that the publisher had dared to change the names (and ethnicity) of the original characters in an attempt to make them more appealing to today's young readers, but I later realised that this Famous Five are, apparently, the children of the original members.

This is a remarkable achievement, given that Julian, Dick, Anne and George were born in the 1930s. Perhaps they followed the example of one of my fellow Lewesians and had fertility treatment in their 60s.

My son, who is eight, seemed more upset than I was. He loves Enid Blyton and although he is amused by the dated expressions, he accepts the stories on their own terms. He clearly felt patronised by the new, 'cool' Famous Five and I doubt that he would be impressed by the argument put forward by the books' creators that:

The new Five is a fresh, modern concept which relates to audiences in a multimedia age. They are smart, cool and hip kids but like their parents they use their resourcefulness and survival skills to bring down the bad guys.

How did this travesty come to pass?

The answer is quite depressing. Apparently, the rights to many popular children's titles including the Mr Men and the complete Enid Blyton backlist are owned by a company called Chorion, who last year took over another company called The Copyrights Group. Here's a brief quote from a Chorion press release:

The acquisition of Copyrights provides a significant expansion to Chorion’s already-robust brand portfolio, which includes properties such as Noddy, Mr. Men and the works of Agatha Christie and comes as Chorion prepares the major international launch of two new television series featuring Mr. Men and Enid Blyton’s Famous Five.

'Already-robust brand portfolio'? How can anyone seriously write nonsense like that?

It is rather sad that the rights to some of our best-loved children's books, including The Snowman, Paddington Bear and Beatrix Potter are in the possession of people who, in addition to making dull, self-important statements like the one above, are able to allow a much-loved series of adventure stories to be transformed into a commodity.

How long will it be before Charlie and the Chocolate Factory has product placement by Nestle?

I know that some would argue that Enid Blyton's novels aren't great literature, but that isn't the point. What I find offensive is the idea that children are unable to enjoy a work of fiction unless it is 'rebranded' in a contemporary setting. Chorion's cynical attempt to turn the Famous Five into a global franchise is particularly nauseating.

Also, nothing dates faster than youth culture. Authors who try to pander to the latest fashions are effectively giving their books a sell-by date. Does anyone remember Richmal Crompton's William and the Pop Singers?

Perhaps I'm just being a curmudgeon. However, if an eight-year old (who loves Pokemon and the Simpsons) also feels offended by this attempt to repackage a much-loved series of children's novels, then perhaps there is hope.